Democratic Sentinel, Volume 5, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 November 1881 — NEWS OF THE WEEK. [ARTICLE]

NEWS OF THE WEEK.

AMERICAN ITEMS. East The Eagle dock, in Hoboken, N. J., caught fire and was destroyed, with two full cargoes of merchandise and several barges anc lighters. The loss is estimated at $500,000. By the collapse of two three-story tenement houses at the corner of South Fifth avenue and Grand street, New York, ten of the occupants were killed, several fatally and others seriously injured. The buildings were of brick and about 50 years old. Through the breaking of a steel twisted rope the elevatoi of the Belvidere Hotel, New York, fell from the fifth floor to the basement, fatally injuring John Mercer, a porter, and seriously injuring four other persons.

West. R. K. Scott, ex-Govemor of South Carolina, was tried at Napoleon, Ohio, for the murder of Warren G. Drury, and acquitted. A divorce granted to Mrs. Anton Stein, of lowa City, was speedily followed by a triple tragedy. The discarded husband killed his former partner with a butcher knife, inflicted fatal wounds on the throat of her mother, and ended his own life by poison. Stein was a Polish adventurer, and was at one time connected with a German newspaper in Chicago. The guard at the grave of President Garfield has been reduced to a non-commis-sioned officer and ten men, who are camping in the cemetery. Col. Watson B. Smith, Clerk of the United States Court at Omaha, was found dead in his office, having been shot by some unknown assassin. Col. Smith was a strong temperance man, had taken an active part in enforcing the High-Li-cense law and the Sunday-Closing law, and had thus incurred the enmity of the liquor men. He had received a number of letters threatening him with death if he persisted in his opposition to the liquor traffic, and it is thought (hat he was murdered because he did not heed the threats. The murder has caused great indignation*among the respectable people of Omaha and throughout Nebraska, where CoL Smith was well and favorably known.

A party of hunters near Fort Steele, Wy. Ter., used arsenic by mistake for cooking purposes, instead of baking powder, and nearly all of them died from the effects of the dose. Oapt. J. N. Dubois, a well-known member of the Kansas City Board of Trade, and a prominent wool and hide dealer, swindled parties by means of forged and raised bills of lading to the amount of over $30,000, and has fled to escape arrest. A Chinese missionary student named Ah Kim, at Marietta (Ohio) College, committed suicide with a dose of chloral or chloroform because a servant girl had rejected his proffered love. The damage done by the recent overflow of the Mississippi in the Warsaw drainage district is estimated at $600,000 ; in the Indian Grave district at $750,000 ; in the Sny Island district at $1,000,000 ; in Quincy bay and city, $30,000 ; in and about Alexandria, Mo., $250,000; and at Keokuk and vicinity, SIOO,OOO. The total damage is estimated at $3,005,000. Mrs. Sarah A. Mosely, aged 111, died at Madison, Ind. Ed Williams, one of the notorious Williams brothers, was arrested at Grand Island, Neb., and taken back to Wisconsin. Two cow-boys were arrested for dealing in stolen stock, and were imprisoned at Bhakspeare, Arizona. A dozen masked men entered the jail, overpowered the guard and hanged the two cow-boys to a joist. John T. Smarr, a prominent wholesale grocer of Kansas City, was shot and killed by H. J. Bussell, a liveryman, without provocation. Sergeant John Hamm, who went to Old Fort Howard, Wisconsin, in 1820, and has never since been out of town but once, has passed away from earth.

South.. About 100 white and colored citizens of Greenwood, 8. C., lynched a negro named Robert Williams for an assault on a white girl. Similar justic was meted'out to a color ed citizen near Manchester, Tenn. The Governor of Louisiana has called an extra session of the State Legislature. At Marion Station, Miss., on election day, a band of negroes opened fire on the whites at the polls, by which four white men were killed and two seriously wounded. A. T. Harvey, Democratic candidate for County Assessor, was slain. Two armed squads went to the scene of the trouble from Meridian, and found 100 negroes barricaded in th# house of Edward Vance. After a fight, in which John Vance, colored, and A. G. Warren, of the Sheriff’s posse, were killed, about thirty negroes escaped to the woods, under a hot fire. Philip E. Sullivan, one of the Arkansas train robbers, a young man of intelligence and good manners, died of a broken heart in the penitentiary at Little Rock, to which he had been committed for seventy years. The conductor and engineer of a railroad train have been indicted for murder at Danville, Ky., for having by recklessness caused a collision in which five men were killed. The State House at Austin, Tex., has been destroyed by fire. The archives of the republic of Texas, the battle flags, and the Alamo monument were destroyed. The fire is suppose dto be the work of incendiaries. The loss is estimated at $300,000. The cotton crop of Georgia this year is about 30 per cent short of the crop of last year. ’ A Georgia distiller, who had been mulcted of a package of illicit whisky, shot and killed the man whom he suspected of being the informant. Commissioner Raum has issued orders to use every possible means to secure the arrest of the murderer. POLITICAL POINTS. It is reported that the President has decided upon a policy with regard to Fedora appointments in the Territories which will meet with the approval of the people of the Territories. It is, so far as practicable, to select the Government officials from the inhabitants of the Territory. It is said that the Riddleberger bill is to be rushed through the Virginia Legislature, scaling the principal of the State debt from $30,000,000 to $20,000,000, and reducing the interest from 6 per cent to 3. WASHINGTON NOTES. The Treasury Department has in stoie about $2,000,000 in Confederate bonds and $50,000,000 in notes, beside a large quantity of certificates of indebtedness issued by the Confederate Govtrnmeni, ranging from SSO to $300,000 in amount. District Attorney Corkhill arose in be Criminal Court of Washington and made a

statement to clear himself of the charges made against him in the press of having acted supinely in the matter of prosecuting the starroute cases.. The burden of the story was that Mr. MacVeagh was solely to blame in the premises. In response, Judge Cox exonerated Corkhill. A big lobby with plenty of money will, it is said, labor with the next Congress to secure a reduction of the whisky tax from 90 cents to 50 cents a gallon. Gen. Sherman pointedly ignored the instructions of Secretary Lincoln in giving his annual report to the press without submitting it, as he should have done, to his superior, and there is trouble in consequence. Sherman's comments and criticisms on the engineers have given offense to the engineers. All the personal effects of President Garfield, stored at the White House, were last week placed in special cars tendered by the Pennsylvania road and taken to Mentor. An Alderney cow given to the President goes to Cleveland, and the horses remain in charge of Gen. Swaim. Commissioner Baum will order an examination into the materials used in the manufacture of beer in all parts of the United States. It is predicted that in his forthcoming Message the President will recommend the abolition of the tax on medicines and bank checks, with other reductions amounting to $7,000,000 per annum. Following is the text of the President’s Thanksgiving proclamation: It han long been, the pious custom of our people, with the cloning of the year, to look back upon the blessings brought to them in the changing course ol seaHoiiH, and to return solemn thanks to the allgiving tource from whom they flow; and, although at tills period, when the falling leaf admonirhoi us that the time of our sacred duty is at hand, our nation still lies in the shadow of its great bereavement, and the mourning which has filled our hearts still finds sorrowful expression toward the. God before whom we but lately bowed in grief and supplication, yet the countless benefits which have showered upon us during the past twelve months call for our fervent gratitude and make it fitting that we should rejoice with thankfulness that the Lord in His infinite mercy has most signally favored our country and our people. Peace without and prosperity within have been vouchsafed to us. No pestilence has visited our shores. The abundant privileges of freedom which ohr lathers left us in their wisdom are still our increasing heritage, and if in parts of our vast domain some affliction has visited our brethren in their forest homes, yet even this calamity has been tempered and in a manner sanctified by the generous comjftssiou for the sufferers which has been called forth ' throughout our land. For all there things it is meet that thh voice of the nation should go up to God in devout homage. Wherefore I, Chester A. Arthur, President of the United States, do recommend that all the people observe Thursday, the 24th day of November, instant, as a day of national thanksgiving and prayer, by ceasing, so far as may be, from their secular labors, and meeting in their several places of worship, there to join in ascribing honor and praise to Almighty . God, whose goodness has been so manifest in our history and in our lives, and offering earnest prayers that Ills bounties may continue to us aud to our children. In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the City of Washington, this 4th day of November, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and eighty-one, and of the Independence of the United States the one hundred and sixth. . Chester A. Abthus. 11l the star-route cases, in the District Supreme Court, Judge Cox quashed the information filed against Brady, French, Turner and Brown, charged with frauds against the Government, and ordered that they be set free. After the Judge’s decision had been rendered, Mr. William Cook, of special counsel for the Government, made a long speech excul- I patorv of himself, his brother counsel and At- I torney General MacVeagh. Cook now proposes to bring the cases before the Grand Jury at an early date.

FOREIGN NEWS. Egan’s advice to the farmers of Ireland is to pay no rent, avoid the Land Court and hold the harvest. A manifesto to this effect has been clandestinely circulated throughout Ireland. The greatest of the Irish Catholic Bishops, probably the greatest man of the Catholic Church in Ireland since the Reformation, John McHale, Archbishop of Tuam, is dead. He was in his 91st year. Lord Byron’s statue was unveiled at Missolonghi, Greece, where he died. The ceremony was attended by great popular enthusiasm. Miss Emma Smith, of Peoria, 111., has been admitted to the histological department of the Leipzig (Prussia) University, being the first lady ever accorded that honor. To facilitate the working of the Land act new Commissioners have been appointed, of whom six are practical agriculturists and three are barristers. Arthur Lefroy, who murdered a merchant named Gold in an English railway car, has been convicted and sentenced to death. He maintains that he is innocent. The applications before the Irish Land Commission number 17,761. On the Brown estate, in Mayo, the tenants agreed to take leases for fifteen years at a reduction of from 3 to 10 shillings per year. At Limerick, in the case of a tenant holding over three acres of land, the rent was reduced from £l9 to £9. The Lord Mayor’s show in London was remarkable for the honors done to the American flag. The era of peace and good will between the two great nations was thoroughly inaugurated by English sympathy for the American bereavement, and it has been further strengthened by the honor done to the flag of England at Yorktown and the honors paid by the Londoners and their Chief Magis trate to the star-spangled banner. Mr. Gladstone, speaking at the Lord Mayor's banquet in London, justified his Irish policy by saying it was necessary to take strong measures to defend public law and private liberty. He said that the people of Ireland are now determined to make a full trial of the Land act, which will be impartially administered. He condemned the practice of boycotting, and said that there was a growing disposition on the part of Irish tenants to fulfill their engagements, and added that those who declined tc do this are those who are well able to do so. The Mikado of Japan has issued a proclamation of his intention to establish a constitutional form of Government Premier Ferry and his colleagues tendered their resignation to President Grevy, at Paris, and they were accepted as a matter of course. Gambetta was then sent for and intruded with the formation of a new Cabinet, and he has accepted the trust

The King of Ashantee had 200 young girls killed recently that he might obtain their blood for use in mixing mortar for the repair of the state buildings. The report of the massacre is made by one of the intended victims, who succeeded in making good her escape. Confederate bonds have fallen to 12 shillings 6 pence per SI,OOO in the London market.